Signage refers to graphic designs, such as symbols, emblems, words, etc. In advertising, signage refers to the design or use of signs and symbols to communicate a message to a specific group, usually for the purpose of marketing. Digital signage is a sub segment of signage and comprises the use of digital signage display units also referred to as digital signage players. Digital signage players include liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), light-emitting diode (LED) displays, projector screens, etc. A digital signage player displays a succession of digital signage contents, such as still images, videos, etc. Digital signage is a field in great expansion especially for advertising in a public venue (e.g. an airport, a shopping mall, etc.), because of the potential to advertise dynamically, such as is done with an advertising video.
In certain circumstances, it is necessary to have the same digital signage content displayed by a plurality of digital signage players in a synchronous manner. For example, in a waiting hall of an airport, all the digital signage players present in the hall display the same advertising campaign at the same time. Furthermore, by contract with the owner of the advertising campaign, the owner of the digital signage infrastructure has the obligation to have the advertising campaign displayed on all of the digital signage players present in the hall and at the same time. It is not acceptable by the terms of the contract that a single digital signage player fails to display the advertising campaign.
In this context, is it not sufficient to a have a digital signage server send a command to all the digital signage players present in the hall for requesting the display of the advertising campaign simultaneously at a given instant. If any one of the digital signage players is not capable of displaying the advertising campaign at the given instant, the terms of the contract with the owner of the advertising campaign are broken. A more sophisticated procedure is necessary for performing the synchronized display of the advertising campaign on all the digital signage players. The procedure needs to provide the capability to address the situation where operating conditions of one of the players do not allow instant display of the advertising campaign.
Furthermore, in some cases, a decentralized digital signage architecture is preferable to a more centralized architecture relying on a digital signage server. In such a decentralized architecture, one of the players acts as a master player and the other players act as slave players. In such a decentralized architecture, the master player assumes the role of a digital signage server and is in charge of controlling the display of digital signage content by the master player itself and by the slave players under its control.
Therefore, there is a need for a master digital signage player and a method for synchronizing display of a digital signage content on the master digital signage player and on one or more slave digital signage player.